...
The Hunting High And Low album followed an identical trajectory, shaking off a slow start by moving 50-14-2 during The Sun Always Shines On TV's reign at #1. A perfectly-formed collection of tuneful, atmospheric songs with the distinctive vocals of Morten Harkett taking even the most workaday ... Read review
Hunting High And Low - a-ha
Hunting High & Low, A-ha's first and biggest selling album, contains four UK top ten hits, ... more
including "Take On Me" and "The Sun Always Shines On TV", their only number one hit, which sold 500,000 copies in the UK alone. Arguably the last in a generation...
Hunting High And Low - a-ha
Hunting High&Low, A-ha's first and biggest selling album, contains four UK top ten hits, ... more
including "Take On Me" and "The Sun Always Shines On TV", their only number one hit, which sold 500,000 copies in the UK alone. Arguably the last in a generation o...
A review by EnglishPatient on Hunting High And Low - A-Ha August 2nd, 2000
Author's product rating:
Originality
Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics
Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks
Flawless
How does it compare to the artist's other releases
Outstanding
Value for Money
Advantages:
Great songs, thoughtful and original lyrics . The best of the 80s bands .
Disadvantages:
Anyone under 25 probably finds it quaint .
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
A-ha first made their mark on the public consciousness with 1985's Take On Me, courtesy of a stupendously inventive promo video that merged live action with what can best be described as a "moving pencil sketch" effect.
The rather photogenic lead singer was "trapped" in a comic-book world, until he literally pulled a young blonde lady from her cafe chair as she read the pages in front of her, dragging the poor girl into his nightmarish existence. The juxtaposition of the real and sketched action was breathtaking and utterly memorable.
That the accompanying track was a nifty piece of 80s synth pop - complete with a endearingly foreign line in lyrics (Take On Me, rather than Take Me On") - only served to etch the whole thing even more indeliably on the brain. The single went on to reach #2 on the UK charts in the Autumn of 1985.
The history of pop music is littered with one-hit wonders, and acts that never quite repeated their initial success. In the case of A-ha, any such misgivings were swiftly avoided when the follow-up single stormed to #1 in January 1986. The Sun Always Shines On T.V. was a truly epic piece - an intense, bludgeoning track with a thrilling keyboard riff and some urgent guitar work thrown in for good measure. Lyrically almost overwraught yet somehow managing to remain convincingly desolate and desperate, how such a complex record ever made it to the top of the mid 80s UK Singles Chart is still something of a mystery.
The Hunting High And Low album followed an identical trajectory, shaking off a slow start by moving 50-14-2 during The Sun Always Shines On TV's reign at #1. A perfectly-formed collection of tuneful, atmospheric songs with the distinctive vocals of Morten Harkett taking even the most workaday lyric to a higher plane. Blue Sky, Living A Boy's Adventure Tale and Here I Stand And Face The Rain presented a range to the band's abilities and musical ambitions that nobody could surely have been expecting. Clocking in at 10 tracks and 37 minutes, it's an excellent reminder of a time when the freedom of CD had yet to alter how artists approached the recording and editing processes.
Advantages: Good rocking songs, will take you back!! Disadvantages: none
A real flashback to the Eighties, rehearing this album! Synthesier rock at its very best. There are the instantly recognisable tracks "Take On Me", a bouncy number, completely impossible to dance to (I dare you to try!) currently on re-release by A1. The bizarrely titled" The Sun Always Shines On TV", well this one rocks! There is also a sweetie of a ditty called "And You Tell Me..", short but very catchy. The 'worst' tracks must be "Living A Boys ... ...which stretch the English translation to its limit!! All in all, a cracking album, with Morten's fabulous vocal abilities (far better than Simon Le Bon!), being well show cased. The new album "Minor Earth,Major Sky", shows how Aha have moved on and developed their sound, and lost the plinky-plonk of the Eighties!! ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: Very good first half. Disadvantages: Bad second half.
...A-Ha will probably always be remembered mostly for their hit single in the 80's ' Take On Me' and the video that accompanied it, which featured groundbreaking animation at the time. But there was always a lot more to a-ha then this, as shown on this greatest hits collection.
While there is that excellent hit, there are also other notable hits, including 'HuntingHigh And Low', 'The Sun Always Shines on TV' and 'The Living Daylights', which all have a great melancholic quality to them which is echoed in the sound of bands around today like Coldplay and Keane, who have both stated that they are huge fans of a-ha. And rightfully so, a-ha have a knack for writing excellent pop songs, which is showed beautifully on the album 'HuntingHigh And Low'.
But this isn't that album. This collection ranges from 1994 to 2004. And like most bands...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
Advantages: Great songwriting and production. Disadvantages: Sounds almost the same as all their other albums.
...and vocals. The album starts of with one of the best Stratovarius songs ever, Huntinghigh and low, which is by the way not a cover of the norwegian rockbands A-HA's hit in the 80s. This song is very catchy song which has a commercial touch, the song just wants you to sing along with it. The next track of the album is "Millenium" which is a fastpaced song with a nice guitartheme and great drumming, also some backing vocals on the chorus can be found. "Mother Gaia" is a slow ballad that has an additional choir and orchestra beutifully arranged. "Phoenix" starts of att a fast pace, but then the calms down to the very catchy chorus. "Glory to the world" and "Freedom" are two fastpaced tracks with a happy sounding keyboard maintheme. "A million light years away" was the second single from the album which starts of with the fantastic main...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: Epic. Mostly a work of genius. Disadvantages: Makes me over-use the word "epic". Moments of odd un-epicness.
...I'm continuing my poke through my record collection with another offering from Norwegian legends a-ha.
Scoundrel Days was a-ha's "difficult" second album. It was a move away from their "synth pop" reputation after HuntingHigh and Low, and was perhaps a bit of a shock for their teenage fans, but at ten years old I was too young to be disappointed. I loved it. I held long scarves in my hands and danced, with an abandon that can only be described as "gay", around my bedroom to every song on this album, and it's probably the reason why, by the time I was a teenager, I was into rock and metal. Luckily since then I've realised I'm a TERRIBLE dancer.
In a highly unscientific poll (a search through my memory to remember the opinions of fellow a-ha fans over the years) the vast majority of a-ha fans named SD as their favourite ever a-ha...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Album Notes: A-Ha: Morten Harket (vocals); Pal Waaktaar (guitar); Magne Furuholmen (keyboards). Additional personnel: Claire Jarvis (oboe). Producers: Tony Mansfield, Alan Tarney, John Ratcliff. The first album by the Norwegian trio of singer Morten Harket, songwriter Pal Waaktaar and keyboardist Mags will forever be known as the album that contains the intoxicating "Take On Me," one of the most famous and enduring "one-hit wonders" of the '80s. However, HUNTING HIGH AND LOW actually contains a second US Top 40 hit, "The Sun Always Shines On TV." In addition, even after those songs ceased to receive airplay, A-Ha continued a long and successful career in Europe and elsewhere. Besides the two singles, the album contains the haunting title track, "Living A Boy's Adventure Tale," which comes across as a keyboard-heavy Scandinavian version of early U2, and the quirky "The Blue Sky," an arresting showcase for Harket's piercing falsetto. HUNTING HIGH AND LOW shows that there's much more to A-Ha than their memory in common pop history suggests.
Titles on disc 1
1.: Take On Me
2.: Train Of Thought
3.: Hunting High And Low
4.: Blue Sky
5.: Living A Boy's Adventures Tale
6.: Sun Always Shines On TV
7.: And You Tell Me
8.: Love Is Reason
9.: I Dream Myself Alive
10.: Here I Stand And Face The Rain
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Listed on Ciao since : 02/08/2000
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